GreenWing Mitigation’s branding features a logo with the shape of a duck in flight. (Images courtesy Liesfeld Contractor)
Having built up a sizable side gig in wetland development and mitigation banking, a longtime local civil contracting firm is launching a new brand to better market that business while undergoing a rebrand of its own.
Liesfeld Contractor, a Rockville-based firm that preps land for development, is rolling out a new business, GreenWing Mitigation, that consolidates about a dozen mitigation banks that Liesfeld has developed over the past two decades.
While the individual banks will continue to be separate entities, they will now be presented as a combined company doing business as GreenWing.
The new brand is being rolled out through the end of this month, with a green-colored logo in the shape of a duck in flight. The branding was developed with BuildWitt, a Nashville-based firm that consults with heavy civil contracting companies.
But the name, GreenWing, was Liesfeld’s idea, said Kelby Morgan, senior manager and principal of Liesfeld’s mitigation arm.
Kelby Morgan
“This is our environmental development ‘wing,’ for lack of a better term, so we went with ‘GreenWing’ – ‘green’ being environmental,” Morgan said. “The duck signifies wetlands.”
Previously, Morgan said, “We just had a bunch of different mitigation banks with a bunch of different names. It was time to reorganize and make all that under one company and one name, one trademark, one identity.”
As a mitigation bank developer, GreenWing acquires properties or easements from landowners to establish and maintain wetlands that can be used as mitigation banks, through which developers can purchase mitigation credits to offset wetland, stream or nutrient impacts of their projects.
Prices for credits vary and are based on such things as project size, development cost, and bank locations and availability. Morgan said GreenWing’s annual revenue for its mitigation work ranges from $5 million to $7 million a year.
“Nowadays, in the last 10 years especially, all big projects have some kind of impacts to wetlands or streams, or they choose a nutrients route. That’s just what it is,” Morgan said.
“There’s a saying: ‘All the cow pastures have been developed.’ All the easy stuff’s over,” he said. “People are getting into more complicated developments and regulations are becoming more restrictive, so the demand for our product has gone up some because of that.”
Liesfeld, which is in its 52nd year, got into wetlands work 20 years ago with its first mitigation bank, Byrd Creek, in Goochland. Since then, it has added about a dozen more banks in and around Central Virginia, such as Elk Island Mitigation Bank in Goochland and Scandia Mitigation Bank in Henrico.
Scandia Mitigation Bank in Henrico.
Other mitigation banks that fall under the GreenWing umbrella include Jacksons Arm in Spotsylvania, Lower James Stream in Surry, Stagecoach Farm in Goochland and Fluvanna, Windrow Farm in Buckingham, and in Henrico, Varina and Sunken Meadow mitigation banks.
Morgan said the wetlands work was a natural extension of Liesfeld’s land prep, both for its own and for clients’ projects, that met a growing need in the land development industry.
“We just saw an opportunity,” Morgan said. “We had the equipment, we had the people, we work with engineers. We saw a demand, so we built our first one and it was successful. We did another one, and we’ve just been adding on over the years.
“As the market’s gotten better, we’ve done more and more and tried to meet the needs of the development community,” he said. “Most of the people we sell credits to we know through the contracting company, so it was a natural fit to do this kind of development.”
The grouping under GreenWing comes as Liesfeld is looking to expand that part of its business, while also undergoing its own brand refresh to include a new visual identity and website. Liesfeld is aiming to roll out its new branding by the end of the year.
“For GreenWing in particular, we’re always looking to expand our footprint, so it gives us a little more marketability in doing that,” Morgan said. “That is a business that we would like to grow considerably, if possible. That could be outside of Virginia as well.”
As for Liesfeld, Morgan said such growth is not the goal. The company, founded in 1972 by owner and President Joseph Liesfeld Jr., now totals 130 employees and brings in $100 million in annual revenue, Morgan said.
As a civil contractor, Liesfeld’s site prep work involves such things as removing trees and moving dirt. As opposed to a general contractor that leads construction work, Morgan said, “We build everything but buildings.”
Notable projects for Liesfeld over the years include Stone Brewing’s Fulton facility, West Broad Marketplace in Henrico, and an Aldi distribution center in Dinwiddie. In Chesterfield, it worked on the Niagara bottling facility, the Stonehenge and Stonebridge retail centers, and residential community Magnolia Green.
Of the company’s future, Morgan said, “We’d like to get better, not bigger. Not really looking to take over the world, just looking to be more successful in doing what we do.”
Great family and company! Congratulations to the Liesfeld Family and Liesfeld Companies on the new rebranding. Logo looks great!
Preservation of existing wetlands is always preferable over mitigation.